I'm an entrepreneur, angel investor, venture capitalist, author and philanthropist. Most recently, I am the founder of Grow America, an organization dedicated to helping business builders nationwide and worldwide. I have an MBA and forty years of business experience as a CEO. I have launched ten companies. Four were failures. MarketStar, Island Park Investments and Mercato Partners are home runs. I currently have sixty investments in emerging start up firms. I know how to launch, grow and sell a business. I write columns on a range of entrepreneurial topics to teach and guide visionaries to realize their business dreams. I am passionate about building strong corporate cultures and coaching the next generation of exceptional leaders.

100 Founders Share Their Top 'Aha' Moments -- Guess How Many Jobs They've Created So Far?

I spent 15 years as a corporate communications executive at global companies. While I loved my role, organizational politics starved my soul. I was one of few women sitting among the c-suite. I knew I could build a better alternative — a company with strong values, employee flexibility and a family environment — to pave the path for talented professionals who challenge the status quo and break rules!

My “aha” moment came when I realized recently much of my day as an owner of a 3 year old fast growing company was spent working “in” the business as Michael Gerber would say verse “on” my business, which held us back from even faster growth. Recently I’ve entrusted employees more and outsourced my mundane work to allow me to strategically plan, monitor and tweak for continued growth. I believe this will move us from $3 million to $5.5-$6 Million in 2013!

We were hosting casting calls for our inventor reality series Everyday Edisons and traveling with our team across the country. There were lots of great ideas, but we only feature ten inventors a season, causing us to turn away many with potential. My “aha” – develop EdisonNation.com where anyone can submit ideas 24/7 for a chance at development and licensing. Better deal for the inventors and our team.

In 1985, a fast food business I invested in was seeing no return. I decided to computerize the accounts after realizing things were a bit messy on the management side of things. I bought an IBM PC, but quickly realized I needed a hard disk, a tape back, etc. Being prudent, I called several places and obtained different advice and varying price ranges for the same product! That’s when I realized there was a huge opportunity here: if I can provide correct information, a reasonable price, and exceptional service, I will be successful. That year, I bought a ComputerLand business and grew it to $700 million annual revenue by 1999. Today, as En Pointe, it has more than 500 associates in the United States and another 1200 globally.

My “aha” moment came from my search for a flexible telecommuting job. I quickly become frustrated at all the scams in the work-from-home niche and I knew plenty of job seekers felt the same. Aha! I solved my own job search problem by creating FlexJobs, where job seekers can find scam-free telecommuting and flexible job listings. Five years later, I work from home and managing a team of 27 telecommuters!

I saw the iPhone App Store in July 2008 and thought, “This is the next trillion dollar opportunity.” After that, we placed Flurry on the path to be the platform for app measurement and advertising. Today, we employ more than 100 people, have a sizeable revenue stream and are cash-flow positive.

At the peak of my career as the vice president of engineering for Johnson & Johnson, I was responsible for allocating $2 million in capital spending. I had no clue if the decisions I was making were correct. Aha. I resigned and spent 3 months developing a methodology for corporate decision making. I started The GenSight Group and those methodologies have been implemented by corporations such as Coca-Cola, Cisco and Pfizer.

I had always wanted to “give back,” but I wasn’t sure how to do that in my field of analytics. My epiphany came when I found a way to build a software platform with advanced analytics that serves people with low access to credit, increasing their options and empowering them to save money.

My 7-year old son asked for $5 to buy a jacket for a vampire on a website. I asked him what was the benefit of an online 2D avatar? He didn’t know. I knew augmented reality provided benefits. I wanted part of the virtual goods market. I still use a small purple puppy to represent the vampire avatar during investor meetings.

Prior to 2005, it was difficult to find vacation rentals online. I experienced that personally while traveling with my family (aha!), and as a result, co-founded HomeAway, Inc. HomeAway now offers travelers 735,000 properties throughout 168 countries while enabling our customers to generate an average of $26,000 in rental income per year.

Most homeowners know how hard it is to find a good contractor. I decided to do something about it. When a squirrel took residence in my attic and I couldn’t find a competent exterminator, it inspired me to create a business that would save other homeowners the same heartache. I believe that you should provide a service that helps people, keep it simple and maintain a personal touch.

My “aha” moment came when my ex business partner decided to leave the business… it was a challenging economy and the agency was saddled with debt. He wanted to close the business and walk away, but I insisted on continuing on my own. I re-focused to key-in on the facets of this business that I could control. I streamlined our services and concentrated on what I did best.

My ‘aha’ moment? Realizing this year that we had to see ourselves as a 10-year old start-up and reinvent ourselves within the changing media landscape. Letting go of our employee model – a sacred cow — to embrace a freelance model was painful. But it not only gave us a crucial competitive edge, but was also a path back to doing what we love most.

As a shy MIT nerd who was never kissed until 21, my “aha” moment came when my mother told me to focus on my studies, because ‘one day when you’re successful and generous, the girls will come.’ That’s what prompted me to create my dating websites where women now outnumber men 10 to 1: SeekingArrangement.com, WhatsYourPrice.com, and MissTravel.com.

My wife closed her retail store in 1999. We created a small eCommerce site to sell the remaining product. Three remaining Pokemon blankets sold immediately and we kept reordering and sold hundreds. I rented a warehouse, created a large website and quit my job.

Our first “aha” moment started with Kildare’s Authentic Irish Pub. There was a 5-year period where being Irish, celebrating Irish culture and Irish rock bands became very popular. Irish culture became my passion, so I opened the first location in 2003. It led to seven more units in four states with 350 employees.

My biggest ”aha” moment was when we made our first million dollars in revenue. I suddenly felt like we had a “real business”, not just a “mom and pop.” Five years, 60 jobs and several million dollars later, I still feel like we’re in the 1st inning, but we are certainly a real business today.

When I went on the Internet for the first time in 1995, I was shopping on a website and needed some assistance. Surprisingly, there was no one there. With millions of people online, I couldn’t find a single person to connect with for help. I realized there was a major gap in the way we connected with brands and it was then that I began to dream up LivePerson.

Starting out, I combined my two passions – music and engineering – to develop and sell consumer electronics for Internet radio companies like Pandora, NPR and Grooveshark. My “aha” moment happened while debuting a product at the 2011 Consumer Electronics show that remotely controlled Smartphone apps for use in the car. People liked the product but developers were hot for technology, Livio Connect, inside it. Since launching Livio Connect, we’ve signed dozens of partners and just announced that Livio is connecting the TuneIn radio application into the 2013 Chevy Spark stereo.

After founding and selling two companies in the 1990’s, I was finalizing plans for my third company when 9/11 occurred. My profound aha was realizing the world had just changed immeasurably; the innovative services my company could provide would be essential for post-9/11 international business.

Comments

Indeed! We were shocked ourselves. What an amazing comeback to the assertion that small companies aren’t a primary source of new jobs. They are. Yes, the ones that scale rapidly in particular, but in any event – this “sampling” makes a very strong point. Thanks for reading, Devin! Regards, Alan

Love the “aha” moment featuring Jim from 1-888-WOW-1DAY! Painting. Awesome brand and great opportunity for those looking for a franchise. The other co-founder, Brian Scudamore has a pretty interesting story too. He revolutionized junk removal with his first company 1-800-GOT-JUNK? and now is doing the same with WOW-1DAY! Painting and the painting industry!

I and all of us at here at Brookeside are really honored to be included on this list of great companies. Reading through the stories you realize there are some really cool people across every industry doing very interesting things, figuring out new ways, new “Aha’s”, every day. The common thread is each works hard to truly understand their clients, to create a great client relationships, and to deliver great client value. Clients in turn reward these companies with their loyalty. Inspiring!